Quack Like a Duck! by Harriet Ziefert and Simms Taback
| Quack Like a Duck! by Harriet Ziefert and Simms Taback | |
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| Category: For Sharing | |
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Reviewer: Ruth Ng
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| Summary: The world is already entirely too full of board books for babies about animals, but if you can squeeze just one more on your shelf then this one allows for lots of noisy fun together! | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 6 | Date: April 2013 |
| Publisher: Blue Apple Books | |
| ISBN: 978-1609052607 | |
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You mustn't be shy if you're going to read this book. It's not the sort of book you can whisper on a train to a fidgety baby, or that you pack in your nappy bag for quiet times when you're out and about. This is the sort of book that is going to require some very loud moo-ing, so consider yourselves warned!
The premise is simple, as you'd expect with a baby's board book. How many noises can we make like all the different animals we meet on the farm? We're introduced to them one at a time as we're asked Can you squawk like a chicken? or Can you neigh like a horse? The animals, who are all parading through the book, finally end up in a big barn together where it's obviously a very noisy place! It's quite basic, but of course that makes it easy for little ones to follow and also caters for the youngest of babies who don't like to sit still for the whole verse of a rhyme on each page and much prefer to get through a book at quite a pace (like my little boy!)
I liked the range of animals. There are all the basic farm animals you'd expect, but they've also thrown in a crow, which is one I haven't come across before and I found that was by far my favourite animal noise to make! The final page, when they're all in the barn, allows for lots of noises all together, which is fun! I felt that perhaps it would be even better if, right at the beginning, they didn't have all the animals noises, and animals, shown on the first two pages, as it would be a little bit more fun to build up to the final cacophony! Still, reading with babies is a flexible thing, so I often just miss bits out if they don't suit me, so we generally don't bother with all the noises on the first page!
I wasn't quite sure how to describe the illustrations. They appear a bit child-like at first, very simple and slightly out of proportion. I wasn't sure that I liked them, but they grew on me over time and my favourite is now the little baby piglet with his snout snootily pointing up in the air! I do like the simplicity of the artwork, with a continuous green grass strip along the bottom throughout, where the text goes, and all the animals walking along it.
The front cover is the part my son returns to over and over. He's eleven months old, and he really loves animals, and the cover here has a lenticular picture of a duck, so as you tilt the book it looks like the duck is moving. I often find him sitting with his pile of books just holding this one (sometimes upside down, I must admit!) and watching the duck move as he moves the book. It can get a bit much if you read it more than once each time - it seems I have a limit to how many times I want to quack like a duck! But this is a fun and noisy book that's great for sharing with animal-loving little ones.
Here's another fun book to share, this time about a chick and if your little one still likes ducks as they start toddling then you should definitely take a look at Fix-It Duck by Jez Alborough which I actually bought for myself before I even had any children because it made me laugh out loud!
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You can read more book reviews or buy Quack Like a Duck! by Harriet Ziefert and Simms Taback at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Quack Like a Duck! by Harriet Ziefert and Simms Taback at Amazon.com.
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